I never got around to reporting on my WPT Experience at Rolling Thunder, a 5K Main Event where my entry was paid thanks to the satellite I won playing at LearnWPT (see previous post).
It was overall another amazing experience, this time around I made it to day 2 and though I didn't cash, I thought I made a pretty good showing and was excited about the prospect of more live poker in 2020 and the WSOP. You can read a bite sized account here on my twitter feed. That is the link to my page, here is the link to the first tweet.
And then this wacky pandemic thing hit and I haven't played live literally since the WPT Event! Wow, holy crap!
Boo!
Man do I miss live poker! So instead of playing in my garage, in California card rooms and the Rio in the summer - I've played exclusively online since my trip to Sacramento. Thankfully, it's been 100% for real money and 100% with my friends - from SoCal, NoCal and the Moose Lodge.
The good news, I've played on average 3 or 4 tournaments every week and I am up over $5000 in profit. Considering I play almost exclusively $10 and $20 tournaments, that's fairly impressive to me!
So yes I feel good about that. But the bad news is, online poker to me isn't nearly half the fun of live pokers. I miss it terribly!
One thing that softens the crummy-ness of online play a bit is that two of the three leagues I play in (SoCal and NorCal) both have zoom meetings when we play. So I get to see my friends and interact somewhat. Honestly, if it wasn't for zoom I wouldn't play even a fraction of the amount that I do. Playing with people I like is my favorite thing about the game - I can't imagine just clicking buttons and numbers without the human interaction to go with it.
So after bad news and good news - the latest news is GREAT news and that is thanks to modern medicine and the miracle vaccine I will be returning to live poker VERY soon.
First - in my home game. I'll be asking that everyone who comes be vaccinated like me. It will be the honor system, and I know it will be fine.
I've scheduled the official soft reopening of my home game for May 22nd with a multi-table tournament - and I'll likely even be able to squeeze in a single table tournament and maybe a cash game before that date as well! So that is something I'm looking forward to IMMENSELY!
I plan to host as much as I can until my group is "caught up" - meaning our points system (to choose Player of the Year) for 2020 is correct and up to date and we have a Tournament of Champions as well. This means probably at least 2 tournaments a month, hopefully the wife will be ok with it!
Second - I've got my eyeball on Vegas and other places to get my card-room fix as well.
Of course there's the WSOP, which will be held in the fall (Oct-Nov) but there's also just the city of Vegas itself which I know I'll be getting to probably in the summer in the first week of July to visit the in-laws with the wife and kiddo. Hopefully I can slip away and play some tournament poker on that trip, I would love to do a tourney in the Venetian now that the giant piece of crap owner is dead, I won't feel too guilty about spending my money there.
I'm also looking long and hard at the Peppermill Casino in Reno, which has a great poker room I'm told. I'm scheduled to visit friends at Tahoe in the last weekend of July, I would love to play a day or two of cash or maybe tourney at the Peppermill leading up to that visit.
And of course, there are the local rooms with their absurd cash game rake and preposterous tournament vig. I won't be doing any of them until they are indoors and get rid of the plexiglass. I realize this might take awhile, but I really don't want to play in a glass box.
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| Stupid. |
Of course I will make an exception if there's still plexiglass in Vegas when I go in July, and at the Peppermill later that same month. But I will not be heading to the WSOP if somehow they still have plexiglass up in the Pavillion/Brasillia/Amazon rooms. That's just stupid beyond belief if they do that. 3000 people passing each other chips and cards, most of them hopefully vaccinated - yeah, let's put up a stupid wall of plastic that likely doesn't do shit.
But I am hopeful, that the plexi-boxes will be all gone by the time fall rolls around. I am also, probably naively, praying that the dreaded masks will also be a thing of the past. There is ZERO reason to wear them if one is vaccinated, other than preventing yourself from still spreading Covid. But the point is, once everyone has a chance to get jabbed, the onus should be on those who refuse the needle to protect themselves, not on the rest of us who are immune. Hopefully the deaths per capital will be so low by October that we can finally be free of the suffocating wet napkin thing on our faces. I have no problems with masks before we've reached herd immunity, but I will not be happy or going to the WSOP if they are insisting on them with a low deaths per capita number in our country.
So there it is. FUCK OFF pandemic! It's time for live poker!!!! LET'S FUCKING GO!!!!
Ahem. Yes. So also, hopefully all three groups that I play with online will still continue - I've enjoyed it very much, despite my griping here. I would hate for my online fun to disappear altogether.
